The iPhone X is evolutionary, but not how you think

This is purely from a design perspective, but people may generally believe the iPhone X design to be evolutionary of the iPhone 6 but I don’t see it that way. After spending 5 days with my iPhone X, I find it to resemble the iPhone 4, my favorite of all iPhone designs, until now. It does share much of its looks with iPhone 8, which is a very minor tweaking of the iPhone 6 formula, however, once you consider the stainless steel chassis, rather than aluminum, sandwiched between the two layers of glass, you’ll start to see all of the differences that separate it from the iPhone 6 design language and begin to reclassify. It’s like they took the iPhone 4 and thought, “how can we make this even better if this is our best effort?” Aside rom the look, it’s the feel in your hand. It has that weightiness, that mass missing from aluminum that may not show up on the scale, but is clearly perceived by your mind. There’s an almost imperceptible rigidity and gravity due to the steel construction.

And then there’s the build. The tolerances are even tighter than on my iPhone 7, at least to my eye. This isn’t to say the last few generations weren’t built well; they were built extremely well but the iPhone X has taken it a step further, much like the iPhone 4 when it was first released. Only the iPod could rival it in tolerances and construction at the time. iPhone X truly feels like a solid slab with absolutely no air gaps within.

It’s the return of the iPhone 4 and I love it. iOS 11 isn’t perfect yet, but the build quality and materials are a return to iPhone’s best ever design.